


i'll write a hymn again; i'll be your woman

by acomplicatedprofession



Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, F/M, it's the end of s2 ep4 basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24563563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acomplicatedprofession/pseuds/acomplicatedprofession
Summary: The door opens, groaning on its rusted hinges before it’s interrupted by footsteps. You turn at the sound, seeing familiar shoulders and cheekbones and rounded edges that are still sharp to the touch backlit by the outside traffic. It’s late. Midnight, maybe. He smells like whiskey and a little like paper - like ink and manila folders and other dry government things that all spell out danger. His eyes are rimmed and swollen lilac, an exhaustion that seems to seep through him from the inside until it cracks and shows on his face in a way that never seems to settle. You’re curled on the couch with your knees tucked into your side, almost asleep but not quite. You were waiting for the phone to ring.
Relationships: Steve Murphy (Narcos)/Reader, Steve Murphy (Narcos)/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	i'll write a hymn again; i'll be your woman

The door opens, groaning on its rusted hinges before it’s interrupted by footsteps. You turn at the sound, seeing familiar shoulders and cheekbones - rounded edges that are still sharp to the touch - backlit by the outside traffic. It’s late. Midnight, maybe. He smells like whiskey and a little like paper - like ink and manila folders and other dry government things that all spell out danger. His eyes are rimmed and swollen lilac, an exhaustion that seems to seep through him from the inside until it cracks and shows on his face in a way that never seems to settle. You’re curled on the couch with your knees tucked into your side, almost asleep but not quite. You were waiting for the phone to ring.

“Hey,” you call out.

Steve’s voice is low, graveled and drawling something hollow. “Hey, sweetheart.” He shuts the door with a soft click and you can hear the sound of keys hitting the coffee table, metallic and slightly off-key. “I’m sorry about this honey, I meant to call it’s just-”

“Work,” you answer for him with a small smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “I get it.”

Steve rakes his hand through his hair, already tousled and gripped through as evidence of frustration and stress and who knows what else before he made it back here. Back to you.

The scrape of his facial hair brushes against your cheek when he leans over the back of the sofa, his palms coming to rest at your shoulders as he kisses the shell of your ear. “I missed you,” he says, his exhales tickling and sending a small wave of goosebumps across your arms. You reach a hand to the nape of his neck, guiding him down until your lips meet. It’s brief and it’s soft, melancholy because that’s the only thing he can give right now but you don’t mind. It’s enough.

You hear Steve’s footsteps drag over hardwood as he sits down by the kitchen table, making your way off the couch in search of a drink of water.

You watch through the glass as you lift it to your lips - his reflection warped and melting wax underneath the faint yellow of the living room lamp. Everything is muted, tamped down by the night air and the low buzzing of late-summer insects outside your window.

It’s compact, slow but still tense and drawn tight almost to snapping and you want to say something but have no idea what. You don’t want to fight again. To turn away when he climbs next to you in bed, to waste every waning day as the sag of his shoulders sets into permanence. It kills you, takes little pieces every time he leaves, never promising he’ll come back because you both know it might not be true. Better to have low expectations, you suppose. Or none at all. It’s not fair to him, though. Steve’s trying, he really is - and if it kills you then what’s it doing to him? You can’t imagine. You’re not sure if you want to.

The clink of your glass against the sink bottom breaks up the silence, jarring even though you tried to be gentle about it. Steve looks… not good. Not bad - he could never look bad - but… not good. He’s been better. You both have.

Your wedding ring catches in the kitchen lights when you step towards him, bouncing back a soft gold and memories of times that weren’t constantly bubbling over, teetering on the edge of something catastrophic. It was a nice wedding. He proposed on your two-year anniversary, in the tacky little bar where you first met. You said yes right before a man threw up his third beer, which made your friends laugh and your mother - on the phone the next morning - horrified. You were both young, impulsive and impatient, so the wedding was held three months later on his uncle’s beach, the night colored with sand between your bare toes (no heels, because _duh_ ) and memories of Steve’s great-aunt Myrna flirting with the MC. Back when things were light, impossibly easy and fogged over with all the things you could become.

What had you become?

“Steve,” you call out, your voice notching in your larynx and coming out tremulous, quivering slightly on the ending note like the slow drag of a violin string. You stand in front of him, the side of your hip digging a little bit into the edge of the table as you shift your weight from foot to foot.

There’s only a few inches between your bodies but it feels like miles, endless and tunneling until you’re choked with all the chipping rubble that’s being hacked at - by his job, by the pistol still tucked in the waistband of his pants and the way he never seems to come back to you even when he’s right there. Your eyes say what your mouth can’t bring itself to shape. _Come back to me. Please._

You speak again when he remains quiet, staring off to the side of your figure like he can’t bring himself to look you in the face lest something splinters. “Are you okay?”

It’s a stupid question, really, because _of course he’s not fucking okay_ but you ask it anyway, just wanting the balm of empty assurances and the knowledge that he still cares enough about you to try. You know he cares about you, know he loves you because he whispers it until you’re dizzy, memorizing the way the words sound for when he isn’t around to speak them himself. You know he loves you. You know you love him. You just don’t know if that’s enough.

Steve nods, pursing his lips and trying to give you something to grasp onto before the nod turns into a shake and a sound escapes his throat, choked and muffled. It sounds like a sob.

Something inside him is split open, something raw and beating a scar-tissue glossy red that has him falling forward and nosing his face into your shirt until you can feel his breath against your stomach. You try to soothe him, carding your fingers through his hair and whispering quiet nothings as arms wrap around your sides and pull you closer - tight and strong and familiar. The ridges of his watch dig into your back but you don’t really care, only registering the way you can feel tears dampen the fabric of your top and the way his breathing hitches.

You want to ask what happened, what he saw or did or didn’t do but that’s not what needs to be said. Later, maybe.

He lifts his head after a few minutes, resting his chin on your sternum as your thumbs come up to smooth over the creases drawn on his face. Hands, smaller and softer that haven’t killed but are weighed down by the witnessing of it, stroke across the ridge of his brow, the sloping contours of his face until they’re no longer drawn tight and dragged heavy. Steve leans into your touch, his skin still hot and thrumming with forced alertness and too many cups of watered-down coffee. There are tracks running down his cheeks, rivulets of hot salt that map across his jaw and pool into the hollow of his clavicle, wet and shining against skin you’ve grown to know like it’s your own. Your vision blurs over, desperation aching and beating against the bones of your ribs until they feel liable to break.

You lower your head, ghosting your lips across his hair until the arms around your waist go slack and heavy, still seeping warmth through your shirt when Steve lifts his mouth to meet yours.

He drinks you up like a man dying of thirst, parched for softness and anything that isn’t the sound of screaming - that isn’t the last ragged gasp before a man gives up his ghost to heaven or hell or whatever numb thing comes after. He’ll let you swallow the hurt and the pain until the shell casings swimming behind his eyelids flicker out, momentarily quelled underneath the warmth of your mouth and the tenderness of your touch. He’ll try to love you, here, now, at a kitchen table in an apartment that’s not home and probably won’t ever be but it’s okay.

You’ll be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the song "in the morning i'll be better" by tennis


End file.
